Tag: orthodox

Evolutionary theory is stoutly defended by atheists and progressives because it provides one of the major planks of their worldview.

The theory is cherished and frequently clothed with an aura of infallibility. Evolution is a fact, they thunder, and anyone who disputes this is worthy of ridicule and contempt. Such a person must be unenlightened and unintelligent. Christian scientists and scholars in significant and reputable universities who question evolution are typically deemed suspect. When their questions raise serious challenges to the theory, they can be safely dismissed as fringe nutters or fundamentalists. “Real scientists” do not question evolution.

Richard Dawkins put it this way:

One thing all real scientists agree upon is the fact of evolution itself. It is a fact that we are cousins of gorillas, kangaroos, starfish, and bacteria. Evolution is as much a fact as the heat of the sun. It is not a theory, and for pity’s sake, let’s stop confusing the philosophically naive by calling it so. Evolution is a fact.

It is no wonder that evolution is aggressively proclaimed as a “fact” for it serves an important psychological and moral purpose in the atheist, progressive, and liberal worldview. It provides a mechanism that lets a person to occupy a godless worldview in a way that seems intellectually coherent. This is something Dawkins acknowledged in his book The Blind Watchmaker (1986):

Although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

In other words, Darwinian evolution provides answers to the questions any fulfilling worldview must address. It answers the issues of origins – the perennial question “where did we come from?” – and thus offers a means by which human beings can establish an alternative morality that is not based on revelation. Thus evolution holds a place of supreme importance for nearly every secularist.

Moreover, it is the single bang in the cannon. There is nothing else. If you want to live independent of God, then evolution is the only horse in town as far as the secularist is concerned. Therefore, no matter how many difficulties exist in the theory (such as the galactic jump from inorganic matter to the first organic cell), and no matter how many holes there are in theory’s key assumptions (such as the dearth of mutations that increase genetic information), Darwinian evolution remains an untouchable Moloch. It has to be. The secularist has no alternative.

But Darwinian evolution is even more than a worldview or an ideology, it is also used as a source of moral and intellectual supremacy. It is the battering ram that is hurled against the ramparts of the Church. It is aimed squarely at orthodox Christians, that turbulent band of medievalists who bunker inside their religious fortress and stubbornly refuse to abandon the Creator!

Such is the oppressive pride that is impossible to wade through the words of social liberals, or Dawkins, or other celebrity atheists without encountering their extreme contempt for anyone who does not share their viewpoint. Dawkins’ opines, with his characteristic certitude:

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).

Laurence M. Krauss, a “notorious atheist” at Arizona State University (who has spent much of this year being investigated for sexual harassment), goes even further:

You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

One may note the mystical element contained in the writings of these materialists. You are made out of stardust, Krauss says, you are the product of powerful cosmic forces.

Krauss’ above statement from his book A Universe From Nothing (2012) is typical of what might be described as Darwinist theology. Theology does seem to be the correct term, for the cited text has quite clearly passed from the realm of empirical science and into the realm of myth. It is myth woven into poetry. It is a genre of writing that shares striking similarities with spiritual literature, as it attempts to evoke awe and wonderment. It also serves an apologetic function in its naked attempt to persuade people to abandon Christianity.

This tells us a lot about the place of evolution in the firmament of secular thought. Does any other theory get this sort of treatment by secularists, humanists and atheists? Not at all! No scientist talks in this fashion about germ theory. No scientist writes books of florid prose in which he seeks to inspire faith and awe at the theory of gravitation. No scientist uses the heliocentric model of the solar system as a basis to “forget Jesus”. It is upon evolution and its allied cosmology alone that they make this call – evolutio solus.

But evolution is not just the weapon of radical atheists. Evolution also spills over into political disputes as well. During the United States presidential election in 2008, Matt Damon appeared in an interview that went viral. In the interview he challenged Sarah Palin’s suitability for high office, in part, based on her beliefs about origins.

Damon could have chosen to challenge Palin on a wide range of legitimate political issues. After all, her governorship in Alaska had more than its fair share of controversies, and her performance during the campaign did not inspire confidence, even among conservatives. Even the Republican presidential candidate himself, John McCain, later expressed regret about choosing her as his running mate. So there was plenty of material. Despite that, Damon chose to specifically allude to issues of origins.

Damon said:

I think there’s a really good chance that Sarah Palin could be president, and I think that’s a really scary thing because I don’t know anything about her. I don’t think in eight weeks I’m gonna know anything about her. I know that she was a mayor of a really, really small town, and she’s governor of Alaska for less than two years. I just don’t understand. I think the pick was made for political purposes, but in terms of governance, it’s a disaster.

You do the actuary tables, you know, there’s a one out of three chance, if not more, that McCain doesn’t survive his first term, and it’ll be President Palin. And it really, you know, I was talking about it earlier, it’s like a really bad Disney movie, you know, the hockey mom, you know, “I’m just a hockey mom from Alaska”—and she’s the president. And it’s like she’s facing down Vladimir Putin and, you know, using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink, you know, it’s just absurd. It’s totally absurd, and I don’t understand why more people aren’t talking about how absurd it is. I … it’s a really terrifying possibility.

The fact that we’ve gotten this far and we’re that close to this being a reality is crazy. Crazy. I mean, did she really—I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. That’s an important … I want to know that. I really do. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes, you know. I wanna know if she thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago or if she banned books or tried to ban books. I mean, you know, we can’t have that.

He plainly suggests that if a person has the temerity to believe in creationism, by definition they are not responsible enough to have access to the nuclear codes. The unmistakable inference is that creationists must be stupid, or dangerous, or both.

But Damon’s statement goes further than just Palin. Since most Christians believe in the divine creation of the universe – and many believe in Young Earth Creationism – and since either belief necessitates a rejection of the evolutionary timeline, by logical extension bible-affirming Christians must also be stupid, dangerous and irresponsible. And they are to be held in contempt by their sophisticated betters.

The liberal glitterati abounds with exactly this viewpoint.

In 2014 there was a much ballyhooed debate between Bill Nye “the Science Guy” and Ken Ham the founder of Answers in Genesis. A year after the debate the National Geographic published an interview with Bill Nye.

The piece opened with:

Last February, the former engineer defended the theory of evolution in a debate with young-Earth creationist Ken Ham, a vocal member of a group that believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Nye’s decision to engage Ham kicked up plenty of criticism from scientists and creationists alike.

The experience prompted the celebrity science educator to write a “primer” on the theory of evolution called Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation. In his new book, Nye delights in how this fundamental discovery helps to unlock the mysteries of everything from bumblebees to human origins to our place in the universe.

Having established Nye’s credentials as a crusader for evolution, the National Geographic asks its first question:

Who do you hope will read this book?

To which Nye replies:

Grown-ups who have an interest in the world around them, people coming of age who have an interest in science, people who still want to know how the world works.

This is the big concern of mine with respect to the organization Answers in Genesis and Ken Ham and all those guys: their relentless, built-in attempts to indoctrinate a generation of science students on a worldview that is obviously wrong.

Two interesting things emerge in this statement. Firstly, Nye implies that people who will be interested in evolution are “grown ups” and those “coming of age”.

Now, he might simply be talking about age groups of the people who would read his book. To understand his comment in this way would certainly be the most straightforward interpretation, except that throughout the interview the themes of maturity and intelligence repeatedly comes up. For instance, he talks about a “mature society” that can filter out the bad ideas. He calls creationism “inanity”. He says that Ken Ham is trying to “indoctrinate a generation of science students”. He says his “breath was taken away” when he first encountered creationists. He calls the creationism “silly”.

But he also specifically attacks the worldview of creationists. To have a worldview that hinges on a belief that God created the heavens and earth, says Nye, is “obviously wrong”. The inescapable conclusion from these comments is that Christians must not be mature and probably not very intelligent.

Last year, in a tabloid piece in USA Today, Tom Krattenmaker wrote:

Creationists will believe what they want to believe. But they should know the consequences. Continued fighting to promote creationism is hurting religion’s credibility in an age when science and technology are perceived as reliable sources of truth and positive contributors to society. Anecdotal and polling evidence implicate religion’s anti-science reputation in the drift away from church involvement — especially among younger adults, nearly 40% of whom have left organized religion behind.

Krattenmaker is a self-confessed secularist who wrote the book: Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower: Finding Answers in Jesus For Those Who Don’t Believe. He also writes an occasional blog for The Humanist.

Krattenmaker is about as secular as you can get. He supports fashionable liberal shibboleths and coordinates projects arising from Yale Divinity School. His articles for TheHumanist seem generally enthusiastic about the supposed decline of the Church and Christianity. His conclusion is typical of a secularist liberal. It is deeply unfashionable to believe in creationism, says Krattenmaker, because it is anti-science and this drives people away from religion. In this he echoes what so many have said before him, and what the majority of liberals continue to say today: “the Church must change or die“.

Such is the supreme arrogance and folly of secularists, humanists, liberals, and atheists when their words are contrasted against those uttered by the Church’s divine Founder who promised, “I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it“. That Founder knew a thing or two about the universe. For he made it.

Provocation

We live too much in time. We’re too earth bound. We see as other men see; we think as other men think. We invest our time as the world invests it. We're supposed to be a different breed of people.

I believe that the church of Jesus Christ needs a new revelation of the majesty of God. We’re all going to stand one day, can you imagine it- at the judgement seat of Christ to give an account for the deeds done in the body. This is the King of kings. He’s the Judge of judges, and it’s the Tribunal of tribunals. There’s no court of appeal after it. The verdict is final. -Leonard Ravenhill

LIBRARY

@ Reformers OnlineDr Martyn Lloyd-Jones' three part sermon on true happiness is published in a slender and readable volume. In these sermons, Dr Lloyd-Jones reveals the depth of his journey into the wisdom and heart of God through his word and the way in which God's word is always applicable to man's true need.

@AmazonA Chance to Die is a vibrant portrayal of Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary and writer who spent fifty-three years in south India without furlough. There she became known as "Amma," or "mother," as she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, a refuge for underprivileged children.

@Free Grace PressThis substantial volume provides a portrait of the life of Leonard Ravenhill, an English evangelist, pastor and preacher whose life is an example of a man truly driven by a deep appreciation of the greatness of eternity and the desire to be a true-hearted servant to his Lord.

@Barnes and Noble This 1994 classic is becoming somewhat harder to find more than 20 years on, but is an unforgettable read. Drawing from historic, timeless Christian convictions, Allison categorises heresies and shows that all modern heresies are not new. It is a short text, beautifully written, and edifying.